The woman convicted of manslaughter in the methadone poisoning death of her toddler was supposed to be sentenced yesterday as part of a plea deal sending her to a mental health facility rather than a prison. But Vernice Harris is no closer to being placed in such a facility than she was when she pleaded guilty three months ago.
Social workers involved in the case say it might be six months to a year before a bed becomes available. Meanwhile, Harris, 31, sits in a cell at the Baltimore Women's Detention Center, where her defense attorney says her psychiatric condition is growing worse.
"The tragedy of this case is never-ending," Harris' attorney, Maureen Rowland, said after the aborted sentencing hearing yesterday at Baltimore Circuit Court.
Harris has been behind bars since being charged in January with killing her 2-year-old daughter, Bryanna. The toddler died in June 2007, and medical examiners determined that she had been given a fatal dose of methadone.
When she begins her probation, Harris will join about 3,100 others - 341 of them in Baltimore - who are participating in court-ordered mental health treatment as a condition of their release from prison. The Baltimore Mental Health System oversees services for the city's mentally ill, and it is overloaded, advocates say.
"It's very, very sad that this woman is just sitting in jail," said Kate Farinholt, director of National Alliance of Mental Illness for Baltimore. "But I'm not at all surprised."
Farinholt said that connecting people in the criminal justice system with mental health services is a particular challenge because they have double the needs.
A similar issue arose this spring in the juvenile court system, when officials could not find a residential mental health treatment slot for Kendrick McCain, a teenager convicted in the 2006 stabbing of a girl at a light rail stop in Baltimore. At hearing after hearing, attorneys and juvenile services workers said no facility would accept the troubled teen.
Joel Davis, a licensed social worker for the public defender's office, said what happened to McCain and now to Harris is "completely common."
"There is no such thing as inpatient, long-term mental health treatment unless a person goes to a hospital emergency room in crisis or is deemed not criminally responsible or unfit to stand trial," Davis said. "I can't just pick up the phone and find a place like that."
